Posting days: Sunday and Wednesday and, sometimes, maybe, extra ‘news flash

Sunday June 4th 2017

When, on one or two occasions, Isis, off-lead in the park, arrives next to me, gives me a sniff and wags her tail, I assume that she just happens to have come across me.

Over several weeks, however, I am proved wrong. It becomes clear that she is searching for and finding me.

I observe her tactics. First she lifts her head and, turning it this way and that, sniffs hard and long.

I imagine her eyebrows are drawn down and her nose is wrinkled with concentration.

When she’s decided in which direction to go, she sets off. She alternates between sniffing the air and following scents on the ground. She is not, of course, able to run straight towards me, as a sighted dog can. But moving a few metres sideways, a few forwards, a few back, she traces an intricate pattern of curves, zig-zags and overlappings, following the meandering scent waves until she finds me.

When I welcome her with admiring pats and cuddles, she is clearly very pleased and wags her tail with unusual vigour.

On my phone I have a lovely video of the dear little creature doing her ‘search and find’.

But here the boasting has to end. After hours and hours of trying, and help from WordPress support, I still can’t get the *!*!*!* thing to upload. I could upload it via  YouTube, of course. But not only is it a very long time since I’ve used YouTube so I’ve forgotten the procedure, I’ve also mislaid my password and I’m too damn frustrated to go through the hassle of retrieving it.

So you’ll just have to take my word for it!

Fair play, she’s telling the truth, honest. I’m a very good sniffer.

Isis came from the Aeza cat and dog rescue and adoption centre in Aljezur, Portugal. For information about adopting an animal from the centre, contact kerry@aeza.org or  www.dogwatchuk.co.uk